Seeking to enhance civil society's partnership with government in improving the livelihood of rural households, a proposal to set up Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation (BRLF) was approved today.
BRLF will be an independent charitable society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 to facilitate and upscale civil society action in partnership with government for transforming livelihoods and lives of rural households, with an emphasis on women.
The proposal was cleared by the Union Cabinet.
BRLF will provide financial grants to civil society organisations to meet their human resource and institutional costs for upscaling of proven interventions; invest in institutional strengthening of smaller organisations and capacity building of professional resources working at the grassroots.
Projects supported by BRLF would be able to reach 10 lakh poor families by the end of the fifth year, an official release said here.
The proposal was earlier considered by Cabinet in April and referred to a Group of Ministers headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
The GoM had recommended the proposal last month to the Union Cabinet.
